When Bruce and Kris Jenner announced on Tuesday that they have ended their 22-year marriage, fans seemed to offer their support for the former in droves.

The internet started buzzing with well wishers celebrating Bruce’s apparent emancipation on forums and various forms of social media.

The confirmation comes after months of speculation regarding the state of their relationship, and reinforces the popular perception of Bruce, 63, as a downtrodden patsy who has been at the beck and call of his ‘momager’ wife Kris Jenner for years.

But it wasn’t always so, in fact, most Americans of a certain age remember Bruce not for his role in the Kardashian family saga but as a gold winning athlete.

So how did the vibrant young man who set a world record and took the gold medal in the Decathlon at the 1976 Olympics become a henpecked husband on cable TV?

Since first appearing on the show in 2007, Bruce has variously taken the role of puzzled onlooker of family squabbles and frazzled foil to his (now estranged) wife’s antics.

Anyone who has watched the family’s television show will recall episodes in which Bruce appeared to be sidelined and overlooked when it came to important family matters.

In May last year, when acting as a co-host on The View, Bruce admitted that he didn’t know about the Kardashian family’s $40 million deal to film three more years of the show and had heard about it on the news.

‘Honestly, a couple days ago I was watching the news and then this ticker comes across the screen saying, ‘Kardashians sign a new deal’ and I was like, ‘We did?’

Join the conversation!

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please hover over that comment, click the ∨ icon, and mark it as spam. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.